Thousands of people in Memphis are still without power after a winter ice storm caused outages around the city last week.
According to WMC, more than 65,000 Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) customers were still without power on Monday (February 7) days after a winter storm passed through East Tennessee. MLGW President and CEO J.T. Young updated customers on Sunday (February 6), saying crews have been working around the clock but it has been a "difficult situation" for workers due to the damage caused by trees.
"We are trying to ensure that they're staying safe," he said. "We are having to deal with a lot of things that are not traditional in the restoration process. But we're still not going to quit until we're done. And I'm optimistic that we're going to be resolving this problem in just a few days."
More than 270,000 customers were impacted during the storm, WREG reports, and 81% of MLGW customers have had their power restored. Young said that by midnight on Monday, power should be restored to 90% of MLGW customers who are still without power, while the remaining 10% should see their power restored by midnight on Thursday (February 10), a week after the storm that caused the outages.
"We want to make sure folks are up and running as soon as possible," he said.